It has being more than a month since
two extraordinary things happened, one of these things that when
experienced you know they will stick into your memories forever. The
first one took place in the island of Sardinia, Italy, from the 28th
of April until the 10th of May and it is being
extraordinary since 2007. The second one happened to me on that same
period, and I cannot but smile when I recall it. In order to describe
the former, one has to understand first the previous, so the curious
reader should wait until the final lines of this post for it to be
unraveled.
What happened first is the following
event: the 2014 CapoCaccia Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop. Sounds
like science fiction right? Well, it almost is. Neuromorphic
Engineering is a field born in the 80’s focused in developing new
computing technologies inspired in how the brain works. The systems
developed operate in an analogous mode, in contrast of the digital
computers used today, and are able to overcome many of the current
challenges of computing, such as pattern recognition, inference or
sensory integration, all with very little power consumption. More
than a hundred experts in the field got together in a remote hotel,
in a cape of the island, to work in collaboration and discuss the
challenges of this exciting new discipline.
One of the most impressive aspects of
the workshop is its own structure. Instead of having a fixed set of
defined talks and workgroups, the program evolves itself according to
the interest of the participants. During the morning, experts of all
areas of neuroscience, from neuroanatomy to artificial intelligence,
give an overview of their field. However, no power point is allowed
and they are forced to write everything on a board. This favors both
a more didactic-oriented lecture and the interaction of the
participants. During the afternoon and evening -always accompanied by
an amazing degustation of local Sardinian gastronomy- the workgroups
take place. The disco of the hotel gets converted into what it looks
like a NASA station: full of cables, computers and all sorts of chips
and robots. In there, scientist work closer together to accomplish
different projects, sharing their technology, knowledge and vision.
This last point brings me into the
second extraordinary fact that I mentioned at the beginning. During
one of the workgroups some of the participants were trying to
overcome a certain problem with one of the neuromorphic chips. While
trying to fix it, they came up with an idea about how they could
build that chip in the future in order to solve that problem and
other related issues. Later on, in a discussion together with
another group they mentioned this again. And here comes the beauty of
the story: right after they mentioned this, one of the participants
went to talk to them. He had already thought about something similar
a few months ago and was trying to implement it with his research
group, planning to publish it once it worked. I thought that there
would be disappointment, because the nice idea was already being
implemented. Instead, the other scientists were happy about it:
somebody else was testing it already and they would all have the
benefits sooner than expected.
It was right
there, while I witnessed this situation, when the extraordinary thing
happened. I was flashed back many years in time, when I used to see
the world with more innocent eyes. Science entailed for me this
romantic concept about people cooperating, sharing ideas and working
together towards the goal of solving the unanswered questions of our
nature. This romantic view of science got lost somehow during the
past years, merely because I saw that the ultimate goal is very
frequently prostituted, and the path towards it thus corrupted. The
view I had in the past came back to my mind after seeing those
scientists interact, and that is why I smiled.
CappoCaccia left into my memories many
things, but there is one that dominates my thoughts every time I
recall those days: it reminded me how science should be, and more
important, why I want to be part of it.
- S. Soldado Magraner
